Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Thursday was the fourth October 27th since the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill, and antisemitism is in the news once again. We are reminded that hatred of the Jewish people endures; that it flares in times of political and economic uncertainty; and that antisemitic signals from prominent people serve as beacons of hate that draw bigots into the public square — and risk drawing them into action. Just this week, one of the most famous music artists in the world — Ye, formerly known as Kanye West — was dropped...
Some would say the 20th century ended at Y2K — midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. Others would say that, as a historical phenomenon, it extended until the shock of Sept. 11, 2001. And others still might cite the Great Recession or even the election of Donald Trump as the real end of the long 20th century. Whichever one you subscribe to, Aug. 30, 2022, should be considered the end of the end — the death of the last personal link to the defining world conflict of the latter half of the 20th century. It is the day Mikhail Gorbachev, the last premier of...
They don’t try to communicate, and they don’t respond when we try to communicate with them. They speed away if we get too close. They move faster than anything known in this world and violate the laws of physics. At least 11 times, they’ve nearly collided with American military aircraft. And we have no idea what UFOs, now known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), are. Representatives from the military recently told a subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee that fast-moving objects are entering U.S. airspace and are regularly docum...
Businesses are scrambling to fill job vacancies as the country continues to reopen from the coronavirus pandemic, but the reality is there simply are not enough people looking for work. The state of Pennsylvania made the right move to pull back on the relaxed standards for unemployment benefits and to reinstate the requirement that those collecting benefits must be actively looking for work. When the pandemic began more than a year ago, Pennsylvania and many other states relaxed rules related to unemployment compensation. In addition to...
On Jan. 7, Facebook suspended President Donald Trump, striking a significant blow to his ability to communicate with the public. Banning him permanently from the platform would be a mistake. An independent review board of activists, lawyers and journalists known as the Facebook Oversight Board has been considering the question of whether Trump’s de facto ban was justified and whether he should be permanently excluded or allowed back on the platform. The oversight board has ruled the original suspension was legitimate, but also that s...
Finally ... some much-needed good news in the battle against the coronavirus. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. announced last week that its COVID-19 vaccine showed an astounding 90% effectiveness rate in early test results and that initial doses — if approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration later this month — could be available by the end of the year. It seems everyone welcomed the news, from health officials to politicians to Wall Street, where the markets soared. Health officials have been saying for some time that a vaccine cou...
Secrecy fuels suspicion. It’s natural to wonder what happens behind closed doors. After immense public pressure from activists and politicians as well as a court motion by an unidentified juror, Kentucky’s attorney general elected to release a recording of the grand jury proceedings that didn’t result in homicide charges for the officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor. (One officer was charged with wanton endangerment for firing through a wall.) Roughly 15 hours of audio includes witness testimony, but not the prosecutor’s recomme...
The status between Israel and Bahrain is no longer ambiguous. Less than a month after the United Arab Emirates forged a peace agreement with the Jewish state, the Kingdom of Bahrain followed suit. Representatives from all three countries were on hand at a White House ceremony on Sept. 15 to celebrate the new Abraham Accords Declaration. In a region that will soon produce young Emiratis and Bahrainis who are fluent in Hebrew, Israeli graduates from UAE and Bahraini universities, and regular commercial flights among all three countries — with a...
The social media app TikTok has been downloaded more than 175 million times in the U.S. alone since its global launch in 2018. But now it’s going viral for reasons other than teens dancing or cooking in pajamas. President Donald Trump recently announced that the U.S. government would ban TikTok on Sept. 15 or force the company to divest its U.S. holdings, citing national security concerns. The Chinese company ByteDance, which operates under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, runs the app. Although ByteDance claims it doesn’t sha...